Rated M for Mature
by Rokhal
Summary: Tony Stark is not a gamer. The Winter Soldier is. Other Avengers offer opinions about gaming in general and Grand Theft Auto in particular.


There was a street battle echoing from the 40th floor rec room. Steve was familiar enough with 21st century audio equipment and the expected smells of death and gunfire to sidle quietly into the room instead of charging in fists first. Within, Tony and Thor kept watching the six-foot flat screen on the far wall; Clint and Natasha spared Steve each an eyeflick; on the couch, James Barnes or possibly the Winter Soldier gave a minute twitch but kept to his button-mashing.

In his hands was a Stark Wedge, Stark-Tech's most memorable consumer electronics flop. Introduced in 2004, it was versatile and adaptable, compatible with games released for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft platforms, boasting an adaptive graphics rendering algorithm to optimize resolution but eliminate lag, and priced competitively: on its face a viable universal console, but crippled by profound handicaps that Tony Stark blamed on marketing and other morons.

The controller for the Wedge (the "Hilt") was Tony's ground-up re-imagining of the hand-game interface. Tony Stark had not had twenty hours to devote to a console game since the days of joysticks. The Hilt had twelve inputs—a rollerball, a row of buttons like the keys of a flute, and two twist-knobs modeled after motorcycle handlebar shifters—all of which were meant to be customized by the user, replacing the standard setup of every other extant console controller. Default settings obviated the need for every gamer to formulate a byzantine series of functions for the controller based on previously unexplored personal preferences, but what had killed the Wedge was its own killer application.

The Hilt of the Wedge had unmatched motion capture capability and internal buzzers and gyroscopes that simulated touch feedback. It was also shaped roughly like a swordhilt. The Wedge was to support the first real light-saber combat game. There were copyright issues with LucasFilm, of course, which Tony's people worked around by the bald stratagem of creating a space cowboy environment where the bad guys wore helmets and lots of people had capes and swords for some reason, and then making the code available so the modding community could tweak the details. The game was short on plot and breadth—Tony's faith in modders rivaled Abraham's for God—but extensive motion capture of modern-day Samurai and study of martial arts texts from medieval Italy and Japan had made StarSaber for Stark Wedge the most realistic sword-play simulator every created. There lay the rub.

It turned out that light-saber duels were hard. The Hilt's loving and faithful motion-capture matched the user's skills squarely against those of Jedi masters, leaving the players disenheartened and gorily gibbed. Only true believers now played StarSaber on the Stark Wedge. The average gamer was content with the familiar mediocrity of standard controls in a standard layout and occasional lag.

Every rec room in Stark Tower was furnished with a flatscreen and a Wedge. On this screen, the Winter Soldier was steadily murdering his way through Los Angeles.

Thor rustled his thick fingers in a bowl of Cheetos. Natasha wore a slim smile. Clint stood braced against the back of the couch, leaning over Barnes' head, hands twitching in time with the gunfire and sirens. Tony gazed from across the room at the agile hands manipulating the Hilt with vindication in his eyes.

Steve sidled up to the edge of the Soldier's couch and sat slowly. Onscreen, the Soldier instigated a five-police-car pile-up, side-swiped a woman with a stroller, and disembarked his hatchback to stab a corderside gangster to death and loot the corpse. Tony hummed "Pinball Wizard."

Steve, while familiar with candy-colored family favorites like Mario Kart, had never yet been exposed to Grand Theft Auto IV. "Was this built off the Army's combat simulator?" he asked, instead of the questions he wanted to ask but would most likely wipe the cool clarity of almost-contentment off Bucky's face. Again. "For . . . police use?"

Clint gave a soft amused snuffle, a sniper's guffaw.

"What, the hamster ball?" Tony replied over James Barnes' head. "Good guess, but totally wrong. In this case, the military adapted a concept that was already perfected for the civilian market."

"So what do you call Flight Simulator?" Clint retorted.

"Details." Tony waved to encompass the screen, the console, and the Winter Soldier hunched at the edge of the couch. "This, Captain, is America's new national pastime."

"Who taught him to play video games?" Bruce interrupted from the door Steve had come in from. It was always _him, that guy, your friend,_ with Bruce. Bruce had never called him Bucky, the Winter Soldier, or any name at all since he'd fully understood the situation. It made things awkward, like James Barnes was a person of indefinite pronoun.

"HYDRA, apparently," Natasha replied. Everyone else looked sharply at James Barnes for a reaction, but he simply hijacked a police motorcycle and headed off the wrong way down the freeway. "Thor handed him the controller and he knew what to do."

"Good choice, Thor," Tony said, in the tone he used when he himself couldn't tell if he meant to be sarcastic. "Awkward and baffling user interface, my ass."

"I chose the adventure most truthful to your time and nation," Thor explained. "Or so I had intended."

They watched the player character ramp his motorcycle up a stalled car and scream along the top of the freeway barricade while helicopters circled overhead.

"Why would HYDRA teach him that?" Steve asked, watching Bucky's hands swirl and prod at the Hilt.

"Gambling," said Clint knowingly. "Hey, Barnes, when you're bored with this one, there's this new swords-and-sorcery thing you should try. Dark Souls."

Barnes shrugged. Clint and Natasha did something incomprehensible with hand signals that made it obvious that gambling on the Winter Soldier would continue, HYDRA or no HYDRA.

"Bucky, why don't you try that one," Steve said, unsettled. Barnes hopped off the freeway, destroying the bike, sprinted two blocks, and kicked in the door of an apartment building. "It'd give you some distance."

"Oh, _Steve,_" Tony groaned.

Steve leaned around Barnes and raised an eyebrow.

"So predictable. _Steve_. Video game violence does not cause violence."

Barnes systematically busted open and looted every room on the second floor, netting $625 and three identical tennis bracelets. To save ammunition, he beat the unarmed residents to death with a fire extinguisher. They died cursing him in cartoonish ghetto slang.

"In 'normal' individuals, no," Bruce interjected. "But exposure to violence—in real life, in fiction—makes people contemplate violence. Sometimes rehearse it vicariously. These games are the ultimate rehearsal, and if the seed is there, that won't help. Catharsis is a myth. The more you rehearse it, the stronger the urge."

"Bruce, you can't be taking his side on this."

"I'm not taking Steve's side. I'm taking my side. I remember life back when I knew as little psychology as you; I was an idiot. I'm telling you that if I let myself indulge in fantasies of knocking over buildings, the skyline would look a lot different lately."

The Avengers looked at each-other and contemplated how Steve might go about removing the Hilt from James Barnes' hands.

"James," Natasha said, earning a grunt from the Winter Soldier at work. "Explain for us the differences between gameplay and real life."

Barnes pursed his lips. He had stolen another hatchback, and was now screaming back up a freeway onramp, three patrol cars in pursuit. He ramped the car up a guard rail, flew three hundred feet through the air, landed in the open bay of a Black Hawk helicopter, bailed out, and splashed down in a swimming pool. "Games have buttons," he said simply. Only Natasha saw him wink.


End file.
